Mines must manage variability from within their operations as well as those imposed upon them by external forces. This paper provides a framework to manage both internal and external variability through the review and adjustment of the mine plan where applicable to minimize lost production and maintain operational safety.

"Downtime systems" are ubiquitous, but these systems have today evolved into sophisticated delay accounting systems. Iron ore and coal miners in particular are utilizing delay accounting systems not as "equipment failure" systems, but rather as an indicator of the health of their overall processes.

This paper outlines the features of a modern delay accounting system and describes their application across the mining demand chain - from mine to plant to load-out to shipping. Some unique...

In North America the demographics of the workforce population is beginning to have a major impact on all organizations. This presentation provides a review of demographic statistics that impact the Canadian mining industry. Trends in the workforce are discussed, including delayed retirement and the shortage of qualified mid-career individuals. These are identified as critical human resources who have key skills required to complete industry projects. Methods of planning that account for...

Potential problems associated with groundwater inflows are a major concern to many Northern Saskatchewan mining operations. Rock mass behaviour and stability have been linked to groundwater inflow potential. An estimate of the hydraulic conductivity of the rock mass is an important factor for assessing groundwater inflow potential.

This paper presents the procedure taken and the results obtained from air permeability tests which have been done to estimate the hydraulic conductivity of...

The chicken and egg scenario where adverse truck motions cause ground deterioration and poor ground profiles that in turn cause adverse truck motions is a downward deterioration spiral that dominates in our industry. If we can remove one action, the reaction must stop and vice-versa. A simple 'truck to excavator' load data analysis and wireless communication system is outlined in this paper; that will provide visual assistance to the excavator operator in achieving improved load placement...

The Roy Lloyd Mine in northern Saskatchewan is a high-grade underground gold mine which is currently supplying ore to Golden Band Resources’ Jolu mill. Prior to the operation of the mine an underground exploration program was conducted intermittently at the site. During both the underground exploration phase and mining, Golden Band Resources (Golden Band) has been investigated ways to reduce freshwater usage within the mine by recycling mine water. Golden Band initiated an underground...

We will present the summary of a number of case studies in which mining organizations have succeeded in maximizing equipments uptime through a reduction of the number of maintenance parts stock outs by 80% while reducing the inventory of maintenance parts by more than 20%. We will present a very comprehensive methodology to improve business processes that will lead to the optimization of inventory management and forecasting.We will examine • Demand management optimization• Forecas...

High stresses conditions in underground mines push the performance envelope of support system to their limit. In weak rock masses those conditions lead to large deformation and breakdown of the rock material, while stress release events in hard rock mines can lead to sudden and usually violent rock and support failure. In most typical support systems, different reinforcement and support mechanisms...

As OEM sensors and interfaces have grown in number, the available data from equipment in the mining environment has continued to multiply. This equates to an increased visibility of operating performance, mechanical and electrical health, and predictive monitoring that can directly improve maintenance reliability and scheduling. With increased visibility, where should a reliability engineer begin to look to directly impact Capacity Assurance? More specifically, what source will provide...

Cameco's McArthur River Mine, the highest grade uranium mine in the world, is located 600 km north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Due to the high grade of the ore and proximity to water bearing structures, McArthur employs development and mining methodologies that are unique to the Canadian mining industry. A description of the mining plan for the Zone 4 North orebody, scheduled to begin production in 2013, will describe the mythologies and controls planned for the area. Prior to productio...

An Investigation in the Stand up Time of Stopes for Birchtree Mines in Thompson, Manitoba

Matthew Violot, Doug Milne, Denis Thibodeau, Cecile Kelly

Abstract

Vale Canada’s Birchtree Mine, located in Thompson, Manitoba, has been experiencing problems with dilution within their open stopes. They employ a VBM (vertical block mining) method, which on average uses three lifts to extract the block. The hanging wall, footwall, and stope block backs are all areas of concern for potential...

Separation Technologies, LLC (ST) has developed a dry processing system based on triboelectric charging and electrostatic separation for mineral processing. Since 1995, ST has utilized this technology to produce over 8 million tons of low carbon content coal fly ash for use as a cement substitute in the production of concrete. Fly ash with carbon levels up to 30% have been used to produce a concrete grade ash with a controlled carbon level of 2 ± 0.5%, a high value material for the...

Cost evaluation models constructed specifically to evaluate the economic potential of an individually motorized railcar system of ore and waste transport demonstrate that the approach may be considerably more cost effective than traditional rubber-tired haulage methods. The system design places a motorized drive unit on each railcar, as opposed to the more common configuration where a series of un-motorized cars trail behind a single locomotive. These motorized railcars are directed to...

Shore Gold Inc. (Shore) is presently designing a diamond processing plant for the Star and the Orion South kimberlite deposits in the Fort à la Corne area in central Saskatchewan. The first step in the plant is diamond liberation and occurs in the comminution circuit. Diamond liberation is the process of breaking up the kimberlite rock, as “gently” as possible. Essential to the diamond liberation process is that diamond damage must be minimized, particularly for the larger, high value...

Cameco Corporation is one of the world’s largest uranium producers. Nuclear energy plants around the world use our uranium products to generate one of the cleanest sources of electricity available today. Our vision is to be a dominant nuclear energy company producing uranium fuel and generating clean electricity. Our goal is to be the supplier, partner, investment and employer of choice in the nuclear industry.

Model Predictive Control (MPC) is now a widely accepted control technology for many process industry applications. To date, there are hundreds of successful applications of MPC technology. MPC stabilizes a process, reduces variation in key process variables, and drives that process to its maximum economic capability while staying within product quality specifications and the equipment’s physical constraints. Positive results are being achieved even on complex, nonlinear processes with varying...

In order to survive within a highly competitive global market, the natural resources and petroleum industries rely on intensive physical assets’ operations that require optimal strategies for maximizing the value obtained from these assets during their lifecycle. It is usually wrongly assumed that the optimization of the operational reliability is exclusively a technical problem “equipment problem”, ignoring the complexities related to human, technical and processes dimensions.

Over the past decade, there has been a widespread adoption of risk based asset integrity programs by the mining industry to address issues with mechanical equipment and structures, moving from reactive maintenance to predictive planning. In most mining operations, corrosion plays a primary role in the loss of integrity, and is most effectively combated by protective coatings. It is generally recognized that upkeep of protective coatings is a much less costly approach to maintaining asset...

Tooth-wear on mining shovels requires continuous monitoring. Worn teeth impede excavation performance, increase energy usage, and increase the risk of lost or broken teeth and adapters. A machine-vision-based automated tooth-wear monitoring system is presented. The system employs a rugged boom or stick-mounted camera to capture images of the shovel teeth. An onboard computer processes the images in real-time to determine the length of each tooth. The current wear state is available via a...

Belt conveyors are widely used in materials handling industries. The bulk materials can be transported include ores, coal, earth, grain, fertilizer like potash, limestone, wood chips and so on. Along with the development of technologies and further automation requirements, belt conveyor instrumentation has also been updated to improve conveyor availability and liability. Traditionally belt conveyors are equipped with pull cord switches as emergency switch to shut conveyor down, misalignment...

Binder is a major component of operating costs in backfill operations. With over two and a half million tons of backfill placed underground in Vale’s underground mining operations in Sudbury, ON, the application of a more cost-effective binder product becomes critical. Terraflow binder, a blend of blast furnace slag, Portland cement and cement kiln dust (CKD), offers a more compatible replacement to achieve cost reduction and sustain viable backfilling operations, without compromising safety....

Productivity improvements in underground mining are becoming harder to find. Most mines quickly identify deficiencies in their processes and then struggle to make productivity gains beyond that plateau. One way to increase productivity in this situation is to modify existing methods of operation.

Vale’s Stobie Mine has been in operation since the late 1800’s employing a variety of mining methods. Many mining advances have been incorporated over time. With the advent of mechanized rubber...

Modern surface mines are among the world's largest single consumers of diesel fuel. A typical mine site can consume in excess of 200 million liters of diesel fuel per year. Delivered diesel fuel is not necessarily clean. Depending on the mode of transportation, handling practices and local climate, incoming bulk fuel can contain up to 20 mg/L suspended solid contaminants and also significant quantities of free water.Standard on-board fuel filters are not designed to handle high levels of...

Improving the value created by a brownfield portfolio requires more than optimizing the slate of projects according to best overall business value. Attention should be paid to improving the flow of work, to maximizing productivity of resources assigned to develop and deliver projects, and to addressing systemic weaknesses, conflicts and constraints that threaten every project.

Techniques to improve portfolio flow and productivity borrow from the world of manufacturing and are more analogous...

Risk analysis is a term or concept that that has many different meanings to many different people. Often projects include some form of qualitative risk planning, brainstorming or mitigation but few do true quantitative risk analysis at the budgeting phase. Many experts concur that if you don’t do some sort of quantitative analysis, you’re not really doing risk analysis at all and in a lot of cases you may even be wasting your time.

Plastic cable carriers guide and protect moving cables and hoses at low to high speeds, over long and short travel lengths, in all axes and in a wide range of different applications. They are maintenance-free, corrosion-resistant and ideal for heavy-duty applications. In the mining industry, they can be found in applications such as transfer cars, material-handling units, bucket-wheel excavators, underground ventilation systems and more.

Belt conveyor design involves the evaluation of belt tensions, drive selection, pulley configuration and other technical issues. The conveyor belt tensions vary with conveyor layout, drive pulley configuration, belt selection, and idler selection. The decisions for the belt conveyor construction always take all technical, commercial and maintenance issues into consideration. A good conveyor design shall provide required operational features and at the same time be cost effective. The common...

Mining facilities are typically built adjacent a supply of raw materials, and include equipment to process the raw materials. Structures are built to support and access the equipment and to protect the process and equipment from the weather.

In many facilities, the structural framing and the operational infrastructure were designed for an economical service life that has now been exceeded. The current operating companies are now faced with the economic dilemma of whether to build...

Brunswick Mine, an underground lead and zinc mine located near Bathurst, New Brunswick, has been in operation since 1964. Due to improved metal prices and advancements in mining technologies, our average stope size was decreasing and our percent of total drilling of up holes was increasing. As drill patterns for up holes produce fewer tonnes per meter drilled; an increase in productivity and availability of the drills was required. Smaller stopes means more stopes need to be mined per year...

The process of relationship management that is required for operating an industry in Aboriginal territories is part of legal framework in the crowns duty to consult and accommodate. In meeting this requirement Cameco has turned community relationships into a business case to promote recruitment, business and growth.

This presentation will show how Cameco’s community engagement activities can grow into capacity development for local communities. Through the presentation I will...

Failure to meet quality objectives during the execution of any industrial project has lasting negative impacts on facility life cycle performance. Cost overruns, schedule delays, and rework are characteristics of project quality issues that arise during the project. Commissioning and start-up problems, low production, production bottlenecks, breakdowns and the necessity for operational work-arounds are characteristics of project quality issues that appear after project completion. Risks...

Economic viability of base metal mining is complicated by a volatile market that can cause fluctuations in the growth and stability of the mining industry. Nickel is mined primarily for use in manufacturing industrial stainless steel and plating materials. It is essential that nickel production be sufficient to respond to current and future market demand. A Post-Pillar cut and fill mining complex is currently producing nickel sulfide in Northern Manitoba. From 2006 this area has shown a...

Strengthening a mine with the Power of their Employees:A case study with Teck - Highland Valley Copper (HVC) and Westwind Performance Entering 2009 HVC and its employees examined new ways of reducing the cost of producing copper. Both the management/staff and union agreed that the tremendous uncertainty in the marketplace created a real urgency to ensure that the company and its employees are competitively positioned to thrive. The focus for an initiative was not only for the short...

At Cameco Corporations' Cigar Lake Project, large excavations are developed on 480 Level and500 Level to host underground processing infrastructure that must remain stable for at least 15years. Following the successful dewatering of the mine in October 2009, subsequent internalrockmechanics investigations augmented by 3rd party technical investigations determined theWater Flush Crusher/Run-of-Mine (WFC/ROMs) excavation required a rehabilitation strategyto mitigate spalling of the WFC...

A collaborative research project involving industry, government and small and medium enterprises to assess the benefits that ventilation on demand (VOD) can provide to new and existing mines, and to assess the viability of moving to a quality based control criteria has recently been completed.

The scope of this work was broad, encompassing evaluating existing technology, developing additional potential and producing a mechanism to evaluate the net benefits of the various levels of VOD that...

Mine production and drill-and-blast crews are exposed to unexpected movement of ground when working under pit slopes. Without specialist geotechnical advice and appropriate measurement systems, mine crews are faced with conducting risk assessments and relying on subsequent controls that may or may not be adequate to ensure their safety. Mine crews need an ‘early warning’ monitoring system to give them the confidence that they will have time to walk out of the danger zone if the pit...

Today, manufacturing all over the world is being impacted by highly fluctuating supply – demand, extreme price volatility and tremendous market uncertainty. In particular, the mining and metal processing industry has to make informed investment decisions in this uncertain economic environment.

Plant owners – operators need to carefully examine their industrial gas needs in order to develop the most cost-effective industrial gas plant configuration. This can be done by partnering with an...

Proceedings:

CIM MEMO 2011

Year:

2011

Copyright 2011 - Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum. All Rights Reserved